Wednesday, January 25, 2017

By NYN Daily

Editor’s Note: Do you know someone who dedicates their time to serve those in need? Nominate your friends and colleagues to be this year's Front-Line Heroes. Every year, NYN Media recognizes 25 members of the nonprofit industry who work in the field helping clients and making their organizations' goals a reality through hard work and dedication. Front-Line Heroes display excellence in their commitment to serving those in need. Tell us who your Front-Line Hero is.

TOP NEWS:

* Mayor Bill de Blasio said the erratic political climate in Washington did not impact the drafting of his preliminary $84.67 billion budget, but City Council members cited that reason in calling for even larger budget savings than what he proposed, along with increased funding for certain programs, City & State reports.

* The city will spend an additional $690 million for “new needs” identified in just the past two months, including 250 million dollars to battle the ongoing homelessness crisis, officials said Tuesday, the New York Post writes.

* Housing activist groups launched a blistering attack on New York City Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen, pinning the blame on her for the city’s failure to stem its homelessness crisis and accused of her being too cozy with developers, the Daily News reports.

* Under two bills passed by the state Senate, child welfare workers would be legally limited to 15 cases a month, while the young kids of drug suspects would have to undergo hair follicle testing, though the governor ultimately vetoed the effort last year, the Post reports.

* Before a 5-year-old Queens boy was discovered dead, the Administration for Children’s Services investigated the family 13 times, and substantiated abuse or neglect in eight instances, yet never took any of the six children away, the Post writes.

* VIDEO: Darren Walker of the Ford Foundation talks to Fast Company about about why it's essential to partner with businesses.

* In her final address to the university, SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher called for the creation of a private investment fund and center aimed at identifying, developing and implementing successful programs and practices across the SUNY system, according to the Times Union.

* Nonprofit Quarterly writes that a new philanthropic project called the Open Road Alliance has been established to help grantees that hit snags in promised projects, and is intended both to help the grantees complete projects and educate funders about the need to be supportive when such snags appear.

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PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER

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TRUMP ADMINISTRATION:

* The Trump administration ordered a freeze on federal grant spending at several government agencies, from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Department of Health and Human Services, followed by memos telling employees not to send out news releases or to create social media posts, blog entries or official website content, the New York Times reports.

* In a heated confirmation hearing that focused on ethical issues, President Trump’s nominee for secretary of health and human services, Representative Tom Price, defended his trading of medical and pharmaceutical stocks on Tuesday, the New York Times writes.

* Trump instituted a government hiring freeze, signing an executive order that he said would affect all employees “except for the military,” The Washington Post reports.

* Not only did Trump sign memoranda to restart the work on the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines, but he also signed an executive order to expedite environmental reviews of other infrastructure projects in order to eliminate the “incredibly cumbersome, long, horrible permitting process,” Nonprofit Quarterly writes.

* As the Republican party struggles to agree on a replacement, a group of GOP senators unveiled a bill that would give states the option to keep it, the Atlantic writes.

IN DEPTH:

* Mary Fox-Alter, the superintendent of the Pleasantville School District and president of the Lower Hudson Council of School Superintendents, writes in LoHud.com that state aid formulas need serious revisions to deliver on New York's promise to students.

* Policymakers can focus on community wellness not just on treating sickness, by using analytical tools such as Data2Go.nyc, created by the nonprofit Measure of America with funding from the Helmsley Charitable Trust, which allows users to map a number of New York City-related health variables, Governing Magazine writes.

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* In a show called "Uprising/Angry Women," the works of more than 80 female artists, pieces created in reaction to the election and policies of President Donald Trump, are now on view at gallery Untitled Space, with 25 percent of sales from the artwork going to the nonprofit, the Fund for Women's Equality, according to DNAinfo.

* Residents of a building owned by the New York School of Urban Ministry in Astoria will file a lawsuit later this month after the landlord told them they had to leave so he could turn the place into a homeless shelter, QNS.com writes.

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NYN BUZZ:

* Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation announced the recipients of its final round of grantmaking for 2016. The foundation distributed over 708,000 dollars in grants to individuals, schools and nonprofits in the four-county region it serves, and grants totaling nearly 800,000 dollars from donors with charitable funds at the foundation. In Columbia County, the foundation awarded grants from the Chatham Education Foundation; Hudson Arts & Humanities Fund; Martha Boschen Porter Fund; New Lebanon Arts & Humanities Fund; and Taconic Hills Arts & Humanities/Education Enrichment Fund. A full list of regional grants can be found at www.berkshiretaconic.org/wintergrants.

* Kessler Foundation has awarded a two-year, 200,000 dollar Signature Employment Grant to the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City to launch NYC: AT WORK - an initiative to connect people with disabilities to meaningful, living-wage jobs across the city's five boroughs by working with the Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities to build partnerships and expand coalitions. The amount is part of $2.5 million in grants awarded by Kessler Foundation last year to organizations across the U.S. to support initiatives that create and expand job training and employment opportunities for people with disabilities. NYC: AT WORK will provide training, internship, and apprenticeship opportunities to people with disabilities, including transitioning students and youth, college graduates, consumers of ACCES-VR and other state-funded VR agencies.

* The Brownsville Child Development Center, Brownsville’s first mental health clinic for children from birth to age 5, officially opens its doors tomorrow, Jan. 26, bringing to Brooklyn a brand-new approach to working with severely at-risk children. A program of the Jewish Board for Family and Children’s Services, New York City’s largest human services organization, the center will offer a wide range of therapeutic services for children from birth to age 5. First Lady Chirlane McCray, will be among the guests at a ribbon-cutting and celebration taking place at the center tomorrow. The center is part of The Jewish Board’s ongoing effort to increase awareness and treatment of mental health issues in very young children, especially those dealing with challenging life circumstances.

GRANTS AND FUNDING:

* The J.M. Kaplan Fund, a New York-based family foundation, is launching the 2017 edition of The J.M.K. Innovation Prize. As in 2015, the Prize’s inaugural year, up to ten Prizes will be awarded in 2017 to support early stage ideas addressing our country’s most pressing social and environmental issues. Prize recipients will receive up to three years of support at $50,000 per year, as well as a 25,000 dollar “bank” of funds available for technical assistance or targeted project expenses, making a total award of 175,000 dollars. Specifically, the prize seeks to support innovation in the fields of the environment, heritage conservation and social justice.

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POLITICAL BULLETIN by CITY & STATE:

* Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s budget proposed to reduce the number of days in which visits are allowed at maximum-security state prisons to three days a week, down from seven, which he said is aligned more with medium-security prisons, the Daily News writes.

* With a proposed court settlement, the city is rightly trying to turn the page on a period when black and Latino New Yorkers in some neighborhoods were routinely stopped and frisked by police officers or issued unjustified criminal summonses, the Times writes in an editorial.

* Cuomo’s new budget plan proposes legislation to dramatically expand the regulatory and enforcement powers of the state Department of Financial Services and in some instances allowing it to prosecute cases instead of the state attorney general, the Post writes.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Jan. 31 -- Women’s City Club hosts a forum on establishing single-payer healthcare in New York State.

On Friday, March 24, New York Nonprofit Media will host Nonprofit FundCon which brings together fundraising and development executives from nonprofits across New York to discuss how to create a campaign and raise money. Click here to learn more.

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TODAY’S GOVERNMENT SKED:

12 p.m. – Assemblywoman Pamela Hunter and a coalition of Central New York nonprofits call for state investment in human services, Southwest Community Center, 401 South Ave., Syracuse.

6:30 p.m. – New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito speaks at “Towards a More Just NYC” community roundtable, Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College, 2180 Third Ave., Manhattan.

7 p.m. and 10 p.m. – “Road to City Hall” features New York City First Deputy Mayor Anthony Shorris, New York City Budget Director Dean Fuleihan, a panel on the special New York City Council election in Harlem, and the political rundown, NY1.